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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27601055">Patients Should Listen</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhodrymavelyne/pseuds/rhodrymavelyne'>rhodrymavelyne</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Hannibal (TV), Into the Woods - Sondheim/Lapine</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Gen, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-11-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-11-17</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 01:00:57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,646</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27601055</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhodrymavelyne/pseuds/rhodrymavelyne</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>All sorrows can be born if you put them in a story…or a musical.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Dr. Frederick Chilton/Francis Dolarhyde, Dr. Frederick Chilton/Hannibal Lecter, Dr. Frederick Chilton/Will Graham, Will Graham/Hannibal Lecter</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Patients Should Listen</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This takes place after Oddly Satisfying. You know you’re completely obsessed with Hannibal when you cross it over with Into the Woods. This started out crack, yet it developed into something more serious than I thought it would be…yes, I've edited it. I've decided to make it all from Frederick Chilton's perspective and to make it a follow-up to Oddly Satisfying rather than an alternate awakening. The summary is partly from Chiyoh's quote in Secondo.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>One of Frederick Chilton’s little secrets he didn’t let people know is that’s he’d once had a good singing voice. He used to play the piano, letting himself take flight, throwing himself into popular musicals. </p><p>“Musicals will drive you mad.” Abel Gideon peered back at him from a cage, amused that Frederick was dreaming about him, amused by all the little things Frederick was open about only when he was sleeping. “My wife used to play…and sing Phantom of the Opera all the time. Do you know how many times she dragged me to see it? Even on Thanksgiving, she insisted on playing the soundtrack…I think that may have been the real reason why I killed her. Even now I’ve got Music of the Night stuck in my head.”</p><p>He wasn’t sure if Abel Gideon had ever said this when he was alive or not. Frederick felt a stab of pity for his wife, a sensation which became real when he slept. He looked down to see blood dripping down his double-breasted suit. </p><p>Francis Dolarhyde whined almost hungrily at his side. Yes, he still had his tormentor on a leash. The scars upon his pale naked body were livid. The Dragon tattoo, how had it faded so fast?</p><p>Frederick recalled only too well its vivid colors spread across living flesh, accompanied by the command with a cry of desparation buried the monster’s mastery of the situation. “Fear is not what you owe me. You owe me awe!” </p><p>Awe, yes, the Dragon Rampant inspired awe, even arousal when you shouldn’t feel it, when you were terrified, your own flesh glued to a chair, uncertain if you would survive. If Frederick Chilton dragged Francis Dolarhyde half-naked on a leash until the end of time, it would still not be enough retribution for what the Dragon had done to him.</p><p>Only the Dragon was faded, barely an outline upon Francis Dolarhyde’s back. </p><p>“Whatever happened to the Dragon, Francis?” Frederick asked with a casual intimacy he’d never managed in the waking world. “Where has your Dragon gone?”</p><p>Muffled sounds came out from behind the gag. Francis couldn’t speak, just as Frederick couldn’t speak in the waking world. Their fates were one, but right now, Frederick wanted to hear what he had to say.</p><p>He reached down and removed the gag.</p><p>Dolarhyde gasped out every word with a certain dignity, even as he crouched at Frederick’s feet. “Do you think I’d endure this, even in a dream, if the Dragon was still with me? The Dragon has been consumed by Dr. Lecter and Will Graham. I am now nothing.”</p><p>“Perhaps we should go see if Will Graham has your Dragon or not.” Frederick stood up, straightened his back. “Here in my dreams, he’s still in my cage, if I want to find him. If I sing for him.”</p><p>Francis Dolarhyde rolled his eyes in obvious skepticism. </p><p>“Don’t deny the power of music or musicals with your macho disdain!” Frederick snapped. He raised his voice in song. “What have I done for you?!” </p><p>With sudden violence, he dropped the cane, giving Francis the opportunity to scuttle loose.</p><p>His prisoner didn’t do it.  The former Dragon stayed crouched at his former victim’s feet, looking at him with shining eyes. </p><p>As well he should. Songs had power in a dream. “Patients should listen!” Frederick Chilton pointed a finger at the pale, slender man behind bars, looking at him with luminous green eyes. </p><p>Of course Will was here. He was always here, waiting for Frederick in his dreams. Death, disappearance, and disdain cannot keep you from here, my dear.<br/>
</p><p>“What has release achieved?” Frederick clenched his hands into fists, shaking them at the ceiling. “Patients should see! And learn!”</p><p>Francis smiled slowly and began to mimick Frederick’s movements with a shuffling grace, clenching his own fists, growling…or chuckling. He didn’t interrupt. </p><p>“What have I been to you? Patients should listen!” Frederick lowered his fists to his mouth. “Ah, but do you listen? Have you ever?” The anguish in his speaking voice surprised him. “You tune me out, go off to your inner landscape, and fish in your imaginary stream! I embarass you!”</p><p>If only this had been a musical and Will had been the princess the witch was singing to. Strange how Frederick was singing the part of Bernadette Peters, but why wouldn’t he? She sang the truth. There was truth in what Frederick was saying, truth and pain. </p><p>Could Will hear that pain? Could he feel it with his empathy? He could no longer shut Frederick out. Not in this dream. </p><p>“You think I’m a fool, a vainglorious fool, but your prince is a wolf!” Frederick started to laugh, almost seeming on the verge of tears. “You, who knew what Hannibal Lecter was before everyone else, are more than ready to throw yourself into his arms!”</p><p>“I…I meant to stop him.” Will hung his head, not looking at Frederick or Francis.</p><p>Francis sniffed, perhaps smelling blood, sweat, and warmth of Hannibal still clinging to Will Graham, lingering on his neck and hands. It radiated off Dolarhyde as well, perfuming the air. Frederick could breathe it, smell it, taste the man he’d always envived, who had everything he desired.</p><p>It would all come back if he let it. Everything which had happened. Everything Hannibal Lecter had done too all three of them. </p><p>Francis Dolarhyde gazed at Will Graham intently, saying nothing. It was as if waiting to see what Will would do next. </p><p>“You willingly formed a bond with a wolf, you foolish little lamb.” Frederick ran both hands through his hair, making it stand up. How wild he must look, as if he were half wolf himself. “I would helped you get that monster out of your head, but you didn’t want him gone. No, even when you hated him, you wanted to talk to Dr. Lecter, didn’t you, Will?” He let out another harsh, sobbing bark of laughter from his chest. Where was all this pain coming from? “The only time you talked to me was when you wanted something.”</p><p>“Wasn’t it the same for you, Frederick?” Will leaned forward to touch the bars, speaking with surprising gentleness. “I was a psychiatric status symbol for you. I could feel you salivating over me as soon as you laid eyes on me, but you never saw me, not really. You saw something you could obtain, acquire, and collect.” </p><p>“And you think Hannibal isn’t the same? That he isn’t now scheming to collect you, acquire you?” Frederick leaned close as well, feeling his skin start to peel off his face. Let Will see it. Let him see the truth of what he’d wrought with his lover. “He’ll call your madness forth from the maelstorm of your mind and this time, Will, there will be no escape.” </p><p>“Did you ever think there was an escape? A way out for me?” Will smiled with a desperate, savage sweetness. “It’s my mind, Frederick. I have to live with it unless Hannibal kills me. Or I kill myself.” Will closed his eyes. “I’ve tried that already.”</p><p>“There is another option.” Was Frederick Chilton really going to offer this? Yes, he was.  “The same option the witch offered Rapunzel. You can stay here with me.”</p><p>“Meaning I’m not ready for the world.” In the dream, Will knew the next lines in the song.  Frederick Chilton had no idea if Will Graham knew it in reality. The mystery of the piano in his own home, how much Will used it was one Frederick had never learned the answer to. “My prince and my wolf are waiting for me and I’m not prepared for either.”</p><p>“Stay hidden with this asylum. Stay out of Hannibal’s game.” Frederick reached out to touch the bars, reached out for Will’s retreating hands. “Please, Will. Don’t dance to Hannibal’s tune just because you’re drawn to the rhythm and you move well together. Think of what I…and you…have lost playing his games.”</p><p>Will didn’t draw his hands away. “This isn’t real, Frederick.” He looked down at the Great Red Dragon crouching at the therapist’s feet. “Francis Dolarhyde is dead. I may be dead. This may be the last vestiges of me clinging to life in your mind.”</p><p>“Don’t let it go.” Frederick clung to his fingers. “You’re a profiler, Will. You were part of the F.B.I. You gave up everything to catch Hannibal and in doing so, he caught you. Don’t stay caught.”</p><p>For one moment, Will allowed his own fingers to touch the other man’s. “Thank you, Frederick.” </p><p>The next moment Will Graham disappeared from his cell. </p><p>Frederick Chilton opened his eyes, tears streaming down to burn his ruined cheeks. It had been nothing more than a dream. Will Graham would never let him that close, not unless he wanted something. The reason he had no lips, no tongue, a ruined face, and a burned body was Will Graham as much as it had been Hannibal Lecter. </p><p>Both of them might well be dead. All that remained were dreams. </p><p>Why was he crying?</p><p>He didn’t know. Will would pay for his tears. He’d pay for it in blood and chocolate. The hell with Freddie Lounds and her supposed rights to Will Graham’s story. Will Graham was part of Hannibal Lecter’s life, the most vital part and Hannibal the Cannibal belonged to Frederick Chilton. </p><p>He’d show them all, even if they were shades of the past, lingering and coloring the world with their passing. He’d turn his tears into song, even if it was one he could never actually sing. </p><p>There were plenty of others willing to lend him their voices. They’d sing his tunes as much as they would Freddie Lounds’s. </p><p>Everyone whom read, whom even glanced at his book was now a patient. He’d make them all listen.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This bit of Abel Gideon's backstory involving his wife's obsession with Phantom of the Opera is something I made up, tying it in with some of the other fanfics I've written. </p><p>The lines "Fear are not what you owe me. You owe me awe!" are in the book, The Red Dragon, which I'm now reading and the episode, The Number of the Beast Is 666. </p><p>Bizarrely enough I think the moment when Will says, "Thank you, Frederick" may be an homage to the moment when Sasuke says "Thank you, Sakura" before knocking her out and leaving her in Naruto. If you don't know what I'm talking about, ignore me.</p></blockquote></div></div>
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